King's Statement about Circus: "We've all seen it, one time or another — the two of us in perfect equilibrium, perfect understanding —BALANCE! And plenty of it!"

King's Statement about Interstate: "Major crossroads, right there, and here comes the most wonderful-looking roadster and just look who's at the wheel! Wow!"

King's Statement about Sunrise: "That's them: the original sod-busters! Doesn't show how hard they've worked, or what awaits them. BUT — how about 'indomitable'? Or just plain 'AGRICULTURE'?"

Aluminum and Steel
by Hilton Kramer
Originally published in the catalog William King by Terry Dintenfass, Inc.

The sculptor who, like King, places his work in such close proximity to familiar experience is not absolved, however, from the obligation to create a formal language of his own. On the contrary. His success in drawing upon the commonplace grammar of gesture is wholly dependent on his gift for invention—a gift for creating sculptural forms that make us feel we are seeing this grammar of gesture as if for the first time, with new eyes, and experiencing the force of its emotion with a new response. And he can achieve this result only by bringing something new to the medium in which he works.

This, I think, is what King has succeeded in doing since he began to produce his large, open-air aluminum sculptures in the late sixties. He has always had a shrewd—and sometimes surprising—eye for judging the exact expressive weight of each material or technique he employs, and it has served him well in this new enterprise. For in carrying his sculpture into an open-air scale and ambiance, he resisted the usual temptation to make it heavier and more ponderous. The use of bronze, with its traditional associations of the monumental, would clearly have been a disaster. As it turned out, an essential lightness and delicacy was preserved and strengthened. These sculptures have a large, robust, outdoor reach, and yet the easy sociability of King’s style—and its marvelous good humor—are beautifully sustained at this new scale.